Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
What's up, y'all? This is Questlove And in our recent finale episode of Team Supreme, I mentioned that one of my most underrated episodes of QLs is this particular one right here, This QLs classic conversation with doctor Matthew Knowles, father too, Beyonce and Solange, and oh I love this twenty twenty one episode for so many reasons. You know, doctor Knowles got incredibly real, speaking openly about the trauma he's faced and how therapy helped him and heal and grow.
He also shared very powerful moments about physical, mental, emotional health, and this one kind of resonated with me a little too much. Got emotional, which is nothing wrong with that, and I believe it's going to help you too. So here's an encore and recap redo of the Doctor Matthew Knowles episode of Question Love Supreme.
Enjoy, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme.
I'm your host, Quest Love. We have Teams Supreme with us right now. Uh fanto, how are you? I?
I'm Ernest and Juliaglo's brother. That's exactly now.
I'm good Man I'm good.
I'm chilling. I'm still still down stills down thirty one.
I kind of hit like a plateau, so I think I'm kind of like I wait in the same thing like every week.
But normally when I do that, the next week is like I have a big drop. So I'm seeing but I'm still on it.
Man. Yeah, I'm there with you, bro. I'm doing a quarter pounds a week, so that's all. Really, That's what I'm hitting up Flatfield right now. I'm trying to hit the last sixty.
So but you down like, should you love them there? A hundred though?
Right, like, yeah, one, I'm going I'm going for in total one eight. I'm trying to get two hundred.
You're trying to come out of the house looking like it's just chestnut nigga?
Yes? Is that why? Burn's just that's trending today? Office sudden alcoh Blue. Anyway, Steve, how are you hello? Everybody? Nice to be here. That's good.
I'm doing fine.
You know, I gotta ask you how you're doing.
Yeah, I'm doing good. I'm just waiting for people to applaud after you say my name.
But that didn't happen, right, that's that's your golf clap right there. Uh layah, Yeah, you're fine.
I'm good and I'm necative. I'm good as yet last year.
Yeah you.
Still, Yeah, because I visited a couple of places last week and I was, like I was in Nashville.
He's a little nervous. Yeah, you know, I I'm one of those people that fell I'm one of those people that fall asleep, and I'm too lazy to change the air conditioning situation. And you know, if you're a couple that really doesn't agree on the proper temperature of a particular room, you know, I'll go to sleep, sneak and put it on air, and then I'll sneak and put it on heat and whatnot. Yeah. So last week I woke up with the flu, and you know, I was
out of my mind, right like I got it. But you know, basically.
Old and you're still blaming the flu and stuff.
Like that, Okay, or maybe I got it. I don't know. I took like six no, I took six steps. I definitely don't have it. Ladies and gentlemen, I will say that we've been on the air. What this this is our fifth anniversary almost Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's kind of weird that we've been doing this for five years. I still feel like we're on our second or third year. Anyway, we've been We've been on the air for about five seasons.
And I'll say that the seed, uh, the seed of this episode was probably Planet I know that Salon's was definitely one of the first twenty episodes. I think she was like episode fifteen or early yeah, yeah, And she planted the seeds in that episode basically that her her dad wasn't just some random backstage dad, but rather an accomplished gentleman with both his his his NBA and his and his PhD and business like doctor that yeah, doctor
and master. But she also let us down the rabbit hole of his involvement in the Civil rights movement and basically just told us other struggle and the sacrifice that it took to ensure that the Knowle's legacy lived on forever in the history books, not only with her sister, but yeahs as in her father and the rest of the family. I'm beyond certain that they are in mission accomplished land right now. One hundredfold as far as being
in the history books. He is the creator of music, world, entertainment. He's a movie producer, a college professor, a successful kids label in print exec recording studio mogul, real estate tycoon, cannabis company owner, Oh.
Wow podcast, did everything a president exactly.
He even has his own podcast. Like our first conversation was me being a guest on his podcast. Not to mention, you know, he is a cancer survivor, breast cancer survivor and you know, yeah, incidentally father of two of the most dauntless, indomitable artists recording music today. Whoever those two people are, I don't know. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome finally to Course Love Supreme Doctor Matthew Knowles, Sir, Hey quest Love.
Thank you for the introduction. Brother. I have much respect for you, so thank you for allow me having this opportunity. It was a little tough. We had a little start to stop, but that's like.
We do the best you can in the pandemic.
Bro. Yeah, it was a commitment. I will say that you you made the introduction easy because sometimes I have to add a lot more broth to the to the to the soup than you know deserve. You know, you can became well stocked, you know, I didn't. I didn't have to add any more flourishing words to your tier and pressed a resume. Where are you speaking to us right now?
From You're California in my office. We have a corporate home here as well as in Houston. But I'm just I love here because I get to you know, when I was I was just shared this story today. Fifteen years ago, I was in my office at Sony at five fifty Madison, you guys know where that is. And the president told me they had just hired head of an R paid them five million dollars a year. And I asked him, I said, why the hell did you hire this guy? And he said to look out the window.
And it took me five about seven years to understand truly what he meant by looking out of the window. That creative space we all get into. And here it allows me to just look out the window.
And you're saying that that that sort of environment of looking out the window and that's where the ideas come into play, or.
Just absolutely that's what the ideas come. That's where you know. I work now, my biggest thing that I work on. I'm very grateful the success of my kids and the success I had in corporate America and the music industry. But I work. I work on happiness. That's the number one thing I work. I work on each and every day is happiness.
How long it take you to figure that out?
It took me, Dawn near sixty some years to figure that out.
Uh.
You know, we work so hard to get plaques and b number one, and then we find ourselves in a space that we lack happiness. And that's what I work on. How can I be happy? And part of that is gratitude and not doing a damn thing I don't want to do.
Man, listen, Oh wow, that's Mantra.
That's the episode right there. Thank you very much that.
I remember.
Man.
I remember watching your interview you when you were on Breakfast Club, and you know, you were talking with Charlamagne and you were saying the way it was when you just put out your book, which I really enjoyed, The DNA of Achievers, the one did you and you were talking about how, you know, people compare Beyonce versus Slange or whatever, and you were saying how every artist has to develop success on their own terms for what they mean to be successful. And I was curious, like how
did you learn that lesson in your career? Like, how did you you know, how did you make that realization?
Well? I have really great parents and they were poor, but I never knew we were poor until I got older in life, and they instilled in me the same thing that I instilled in my kids, and that is you can dream and dream big because the same efforts and energy on a little small idea, it's the same energy and efforts on the big idea. So my parents, you know, I watched them work their day job but
yet be entrepreneurs on the weekends and at night. My daddy was a truck driver by day, working for white folks, and by night he convinced the white folks to let him use the truck all the time, and he would tear down houses and sell the metals and sell the woods, scrap and yeah, scrap metals. Yeah, I see. You know that. Man.
I'm from North Carolina, so this is home for me. The gall well, we make wine. So now I'm familiar.
What did your mother what was her gig? You said your dad, Well.
My mother was a color a colored maid. My dad made thirty dollars a week as a truck driver. My mom made fifteen dollars a week as a colored maid. She convinced the white woman she worked for to give her all of her hand me down clothes and own and convinced her to ask her her friends to give her the hand me down clothes. And on the weekend, my mom and a couple of her best friends would make these beautiful quotes and sell them. So I saw entrepreneurship.
My grandfather was on both sides and grandmother on both sides were entrepreneurs. So entrepreneurship is part of our tradition and our family.
And where did you grow up?
What?
Where's this?
Gaston, Alabama?
It's Alabama.
Got a little small town, you know. I grew up on a dirt road with an outside bathroom until I was about thirteen, fourteen years old.
An outhouse outhouse. Wow, Okay, yeah, I have a question. You said something really crucial at the top. Well, you said two crucial things. One to fine happiness, which you're right. That's that's something that we learned later in life. I noticed I think last week I forgot what I was watching. But I will say that one of the biggest mistakes that I think the average black household instills. And you know this is not strictly just black households. I know
this is a universal thought. Is oftentimes parents will tell their kids, you know, it's better to be safe than sorry. Are you know, have have a plan, B, have a bland C. But you know, oftentimes when you said that, you know, following your dreams, especially when you're living kind of in a poverty level or at least below what the what the average what the average income is for
survival for whatever time period you're speaking of. I know that oftentimes when people are in fight or flight modes for survival, they often think that daydreaming is kind of a waste of time. I sort of, I sort of grew up in my family structure was definitely more about
survival than anything. My actual inner family, like my mother and my father, of course they were like the dreamers of My father was like one of nine kids, so you know, kind of like I'll say that his family was more or less about survival and in terms of getting a good job, making good money, surviving, and he pursued his dream. So how much of a risk is it when you are living in a situation in which you might not know where your next meal is coming
from or that sort of thing. Yeah, like most people can't or it feel as though they can't afford to daydream when they have bills to pay, that sort of thing. So how do you like how what was different about your situation than the average household?
Well, I share what my parents did. I like to use the word rather than survival survival determination. Uh, they were determined. They weren't passionate about doing their day job. That was more determination to provide just like you just said, it.
Was a means to an end.
Right. But but my parents, you know, I think in the day daydreaming process, at least for me with my kids, it was always about finding that thing you were passionate about and how soon and how early you can find that passion. And if you think about when we think about the Williams sisters or Michael Jordan or Michael Jackson or Tiger Woods, they found their passion very very early. And so my parents gave me that that space, gave me that that ability to daydream and supported it, just
like I supported my kids with whatever their passion. And I always say, you know, had Beyonce or Clanche both said Daddy, I want to I want to be a doctor. I would have supported that. I would have sent them to a school of that had science. I would have gone to the you know library, let them read about science and medicine and surround them with that. But I would have said, though, once you get your your your license and graduate from med school, your daddy would will
have a hospital. Think about that. It was never you gonna work for somebody. It was you're gonna be in a position of entrepreneurship and wealth, which black people we don't. We always hesitate and are shy about talking about building wealth.
Not even.
Right.
Yeah, yeah, I you know, I meant that in my personal situation, like you know, and even now I still wrestle with that because you know, I come from West Philadelphia, and I mean, like you can attest to this, like I'm when I'm in Philadelphia, I still feel the need to drive my first raggedy car. I have sentimental value to it. But of course, you know, I also have a grown man's car. I have a may Bat, but.
And you have an Oscar winning documentary puts right.
We're trying to play broke, nigga.
Trying to play broke and also break us down. How you diversify because some of us are trying to get there because it's dope the way that you do the way you do with the product job.
Yeah, he got it, Matthew.
Here's the thing though, here's okay, So again, you two have been following me the last year, so you know, I kind of been running the same narrative on the show. I'm now learning that, Okay. When I when I was doing the nineteen job thing where I said yes to everything, Ye'll do that, I'll produce that. No, no, no. According to someone nameless, she said that that was me being
the mayor. She's like, you enjoy being the mayor, Like the mayor is the person that is sort of like the super of the apartment, you know, like bookmen like fixing the pipes and I'll fix your electricity d D. And she's like, first of all, you know, because you're in fight or flight mood, you know, that's why you keep saying yes to everything. And she's like, it's the moment you let those things go and give yourself a
chance to breathe and look out the window. Which is why when he said looking out the window, I knew exactly resonate because you know, I finally discovered that lookout the window moment during the pandemic.
You know, not a person who said this was this that their names start with G and rhyme with race.
Yes, it was race.
So why didn't we pick up on this looking out the window thing when Good Times came on? Because we knew that what they were motivator. Yeah, that was depressing just looking out of the window watching the as far.
It's daydreaming. You know what, there's a really interesting episode of Soul Train in seventy five, Don Cornelius asks, you know this point, Michael Jackson's like seventeen, and you know, it's like his senior year of high school. So you know, Donn is joking with Michael Jackson about like him and Danny Botten JUGI in the same high school and how Danny always gets in trouble and Mike doesn't get in trouble.
And you know, he asked Mike, like, what are you doing in your spare time like as a seventeen year old, And Mike had a very very interesting answer that he used to always laugh at until now. Mike's first answer was, you know, I'd just like to sit in daydream, which right, that sounded silly, but I didn't realize the importance of day dreaming. That that puts your mind space in the
space of achievement. And if you you know, if you follow Michael Jackson's career, especially in the Spike Lee documentaries, like he was world famous for like documenting his day dreams. One day, I want to achieve the Internet and then I want to be the dinner. So I'm realizing that now,
you know, in this late stage of my life. But you know, I I really wish I could I could hone in and tell people at least listen to this episode how it's so important to encourage your kids to dream, to you know, really really take the time out to sit in silence into to daydream, because you know, I kind of came from a school where it was like, you know, burn the hand, be's doing the bush and you know, you know, if you don't work, you can't eat, like all those idioms that my grandmom used to stay
like wait, how boy, you know it ain't gonna feed itself, that sort of thing. Like I grew up in that sort of household when my parents were on the road, and you know, I always thought, like you can't afford to daydream, like you gotta work to survive, and now I'm realizing it's the the opposite.
So and daydreaming allows us also to visualize, to visualize where we can be in the future, because if we don't, if we don't visualize and see it, like people ask me all the time, like did you ever think I think that you know, Deskin y'all or Beyonce or Solange would be as successful. Absolutely, I used to visualize it. I actually used to see it. And that's one of the things that daydreaming and just taking time out sometimes, just like you just said, quest love just to take
time out. And the older I get, and I think it also has to do as you get older and experience life more, you begin to see life differently. I'm you know, I'll be seventy years old than five months, and so I'm a reality I'm in reality mode that you know, time is my window is getting short, and so I see life differently as well. So that's part of it.
Well, you just reminded me that it's going to be twenty twenty two in five months. In my mind, right, it might be made I was doing minute now you was born in January, that's like next year. And now I'm realizing that.
January is next year exactly.
Can I ask a question about your upbringing a little bit, because I know that one of the things that brought folks to the attention of how kind of dope you are for lack of a better term, was the Solange album And when you do the piece, yeah it's got the right to be mad, which she wrote, but it's your story and it made me think about you talking about fantasy and how you basically were raised and yeah, you can fantasize, but you also have this reality in
your face of being like a first Can you just talk about like that piece?
And yeah, I tell you, people just don't know Solange. Solange. You know, we made a big, big mistake on her first album. You know, Solanche was fifteen.
Was that the Hadley Street Dreams record.
No No, No, that was a great record, solo star. You know, I made a big mistake. Columbia Records made a big mistake of trying to make her something she really wasn't and trying to make her a pop artist. Uh, and that's not really who she is. And it was with Hadley Street Dreamed dreams that she really took a stand about her artistry and she was right, and she wrote her way and performed her way out of the shadow of her sister. You know, we used to say
and Beyonce the little sister Solange. People don't say that anymore. And people don't even know that Kelly Rowland's first album, which people don't know Kelly Rowland either. Most people don't know Kelly Rowland's album. First album sold four million records outside of America, four a million, and that album half of it Solange wrote, right, or the songs she wrote for Beyonce or Destiny's Child or all the other mini artists.
So you know, I really, uh look back. You know, it's crazy because the next book I'm doing is called When I Look Back. But when I look Back. That's the one thing I'm proud is that Solange stood up for her artists, her artistic expression and to become part of the process. Because you know, when you're small, you're young, rather you don't become you don't really get an opportunity to be part of the process. So I'm proud of Solunge.
I still wanted you to just talk about the interlude, though, with you got the right to be mad, and how you felt.
When she came Oh that well, it was it was really an interesting moment. What you don't know is Solons orchestrated. I had never seen my former wife from since our divorce, and we actually didn't know it, but we walked into a room in New Orleans and so that that was a special moment in itself. You know. You know Solane with her creativity, she knew how to I think she
knew also how to bring something out of me. Uh and took me back to my childhood, which as a child, I never went to a black school growing up in Gaston, Alabama. George Wallace l the governor al Lingo my my age from Alabama. You know that name, because this guy was over the state. True, you know, it was really tough for me being the very first one of the first and going to a Catholic elementary school in Gaston, Alabama.
Who does that? I mean, who does that? And then going to a junior high school with a thousand white kids and first days. You know, George Wallace had this thing about freedom of choice. You can go to any school you want to, but you own your damn own don't ask me to save, you support tect you protect you, You own your own, So that those were tough times,
being one of the first. And my mother was so frightened in my junior high that she actually took a job in the UH at the school, in the elect room so that she could be there as a cook, so she could be there with her. Because we never knew what was going to happen. We got in fights, you know, the white kids would circle us and here we are in the middle of a fight. We didn't know what was going to happen that day.
And mister Nosle, you're only child at the time. You have any brothers and sisters?
Well, you know, I have my brother, it has passed on. He was nine years older, and my sister, who my parents adopted, is nine years younger. So we all in a way we're the only child.
There's always experiencing stuff by ourself.
Yeah, right, when do you consider Solons made a lot about your involvement in the civil rights period? Of course, you know, when if you're in Gatsa in Alabama as a elementary school student, I'm certain that every day was a day for civil rights. But when do you con your actual entry into participating in the civil rights period.
It would be my first demonstration. You know, most people, of course love don't realize how young we were as kids participating in demonstrations. And when the state troopers were beating, they didn't care of you a woman, a man, or child. And so that period of leaving your church, going to a Penny's store and sitting at the counter there in the cafeteria and state troopers companying people running screaming, those
were the experiences. I've been beaten, I've been spit on, I've been electric pride, and those of you that don't know what that is, it's like a tool of the battle. Yeah, that's you for cattle. And they used that a lot, that electric product on us, and it was really time. I remember one time I was demonstrating and they made the older men take off their shoes and walk barefoot, and it was like a hundred degrees, so you can
imagine that. Or when we would demonstrate, I remember many times at night we would demonstrate at the courtroom and we had no outside facilities. The ladies had to surround, the men had to dig holes in the dirt. We did what we had to do. To survive. People don't realize what really went through that civil rights movement and how people risked their lives to get us to where
we are today. That's why I get I still hold people accountable because COVID and a lot of what's happened is because when Donald Trump ran for president, black folks we didn't vote like we did eight years previous. And I'm most always hope and remind black folks the accountability of that.
I had to take it more more of Sunce just to just to iggest that in terms of, well, when you were knee deep in these protests or whatever, like, did you you're saying you did this at a young age? Correct?
Yes, I'm talking twelve years old around that age.
So even then you had the wherewithal to even comprehend what you were doing and why you were doing it. Did you, and you're at twelve, did you feel as though there was going to be an endgame or a time period in which you wouldn't have to do this anymore? Or I just feel I just.
Knew it was wrong. I was a child. My mother was an activist. My mother grew up in Maryon, Alabama. My mother went to high school with Coreta King and Andrew Young's wife. They all went to high school the same grade, Lincoln Memorial High School and Marion and Alabama. By the way, we don't know the proper story now Martin Luther King and Andrew Young married these two women from Marion, which is about eight nine miles from Selma.
We don't know about brother Jackson who got hung and Marian because of what you know, we talked about Selma. It really started at Marion. But not to get on that, but my mother was really engraved in the civil rights movement, so I understood a lot. We're a kid, you don't totally understand it, but you know wrong and you know you're being treated differently. And I had to go to therapy,
years of therapy, years of therapy for racial trauma. And if today women can talk about things that happened thirty forty fifty years ago and sexual trauma, then we have to acknowledge that also racial trauma impacts us.
When would you When did you start that journey of going to therapy and addressing that boy?
How old were you?
Well, this was my adult I'm talking in two thousand and four or five.
Yeah, definitely a new trend for black men to talk about going to therapy.
I was in therapy for I mean back to back weekly therapy for almost ten years, and at the beginning didn't quite understand it because I had this personality and still have to work on it, still have to work on it, this compulsive, compulsive personality, you know, Uh, I love. I don't know if that impacted cranes in the sky, but when line say I drank too much, dance too much, a party too much, that was me. You know, I did everything to damn much.
Try to drink it.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, And so that that was me and doing that period just compulsive, gotta do more, gotta do more, gotta do more, got to do more, not enough, And so I had to come to grips of that. It actually cost me my marriage, uh that that behavior, and I hold I take responsibility and accountability for that. I don't run a high from that, but you know it was up. When I finally met and got a black male therapist, things change for me.
You find one of them, Oh my god.
Yeah, that's that's one in Dallas, Texas. A brother there that uh really really impacted because I had been going to a Jewish, white woman from New York who was traditional. Uh, you know all the acromyms. Uh. And and this brother said, no, no, let's go back to your childhood from a different perspective. Let's what was the trauma. And the trauma was you were a kid fearful of your life. The trauma was, you know, you were taught to feel not as as as equal, less than that. You had to do all
of this stuff to get acknowledgment. Uh. And it's when I began to understand that better. And I still have to work on it. I can see up touches up touching.
I'm gonna tell y'all, this is almost I want you to to take over this interview because, like you don't know, in my head, in my head right now, I'm like really trying to hold back the team, like this is ship. I wish, like my my main regret was like right now, I'm just really overwhelmed talking to hear an older black man talk this way, because like I'm in my head,
I'm like, damn man, like this is ship. This is the evolution I wish my dad had went through before he passed away, Like he kinda he kind of landed the plane nicely maybe in like the last sort of like the last year of his life when he knew he was gonna leave, you know, and then we finally like you know, because like black men just didn't talk about feelings.
Boomers, especially boomers, like I have math, doctor Knowles is the exception to the rule.
But yeah, like this is really I really have no questions left, Like I'm just.
And I just asked, Okay, so this is my question because you said you did some racial therapy, and it's interesting because I thought about something when a mir said said something about the way his parents raised him about not being daydreamers and stuff, and it seems like the reason to go toward the racial part is because and the reason sometimes for a black therapist is because it's so the trauma is so deep and generational that you need to understand why that generation before didn't allow for
day dreaming because they didn't feel like it was allowed.
That was how to protect themselves.
Everything that we do has such a cause, and a lot of us just don't even we think that it's just something fresh and new and something wrong with us, but it's so generational and generational trauma.
It's just and every generation is Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead.
No, no, no, no, you're all on the right path here. And again I I I learned and and and learned so much. I mean, there was a part of me, a chaotic part of me, and I think we all have a chaotic part of ourselves that we have come to come to grips with. And in that process was just a lot I learned, Uh, like a rotticized rage. Probably a word you never heard before.
Rage, Yes, okay, got it?
Okay, sure, he's a therapeutic term. I because I was the skinny black kid. The coaching junior high school asked me to play basketball. And I was always the last kid to get picked on the sand loot with the black kids. But he thought I could play, but I couldn't.
Uh, but you looked the part.
But yeah, like.
Black talk of must playing basketball. But you know, I picked up kind of quickly and and and then something happened. I understood quickly that by being a basketball star, it gave me privileges, and so I started dating white girls, and started dating white girls only in Alabama. But it was you know, it wasn't over. You couldn't just be out there with it you know, but it made me and my mother was a good mom, but some things
as all of us. She used to tell me, and it was embedded, don't you ever bring no black napping head girl in my house? Trauma?
So from so hearing it from your and you were hearing that from your mother. Your mother told you not to bring no not to bring no black girls home.
Right, no nappy, But she would have been okay if she was light complexion.
She passed the paperbag test.
Then right, mister knows you're making me so happy with this conversation right now.
Yeah, this is the first. I didn't even think conversations like this could happen with any black person, at least not born before nineteen seventy five.
Because are you basically admitting that she had an effect on your choices in that way too, like subconsciously, because yeah.
She.
Understood that, you know she, but a lot happened, a lot happened to black folks that we don't understand those impacts. And I'll just let you guys ask the question, because this is is going to a place, this conversation that I think the universe wanted it to go.
I think so.
For it serious question.
I got, so how did you okay?
So in this and throughout this journey, one thing that came to mind was once you got to the point where you were successful and you know, you got your girls careers kind of off the ground, and Deston Strode
was pointing everything, how did you fight against that? I guess that survivor's guilt or that survivors were more kind of like seeing how far you've come and realizing like, oh my god, like I actually made it, so to speak, you know, how did you fight against when you talk about just those old traumas, old uh no, bad behaviors. How did you stop from I guess self sabotaging yourself in that way or were you able to you know.
I had to go through this process of understanding why. Like I said, it cost me dearly. But to your question of feeling guilty about success, you know, my dad again my parents, My dad was a volunteer fireman. He wanted to be that was his dream, was to be a fireman. But you couldn't be a fireman in Alabama, Gaston, Alabama. We're talking the sixties if you were black. So my dad used to my dad was six or four hundred pounds. Call him big mac.
Oh.
And there's one word to describe my dad gentle. Gentle. All he did was help people. So this whole thing about giving back, I don't feel guilty about success because I learned as a kid watching my parents give back to their communities and giving back to help people. So I can I can say I never felt guilt guilt from success because I worked very hard for it and was fortunate to find my passion early in life, which was the ability to communicate effectively.
In the early days when y'all were when you were when you were misnos and y'all were working with the girls and doing Justin's Child. How did you learn, I guess, to kind of differentiate between being the dad and being the manager, being the coach. You know what I'm saying, like, how did you know? How did you kind of, I guess compartmentalize all those roles.
Well, that was That's a good question, you know. I have to say I'm guilty of last night watching Jermaine Dupries, the show called something.
Rap the Kids, the one with the Kids.
I mean I watched six or seven episodes. In every episode had about five or six I mean, I was up about four hours. I couldn't and they had the parents and the kids. They were all between twelve and sixteen. You know. Fortunate for me again, I did twenty years of corporate America, so I brought a different skill set to the music industry than most. And you know, most people and media would have what I call the Jedi mind trick. Have you to believe that I left corporate
America to be Beyonces manager and that's not true. I left and they always say Xerox. Well, I left Xerox in nineteen eighty eight, and then I was one of the first blacks, and in my life have followed this pattern of one of the first blacks, So listen to me through I was fortunately and grateful to work at Xerox Corporation in the eighties, which was a number one corporation for blacks, and I was the president of Minorities United and othern Region, which was about four hundred black employees.
I was a president of that organization for three years. I was fortunate to be the number one sells rep worldwide at Xerox Medical Systems three out of four years. To be the first or one of the first blacks, I'm not sure to sell mri CT scanners in America what and to be a neural surgical specialist with Johnson and Johnson. That's how I ended my career. People don't
know my career is a neurosurgical specialists. I would work with neurosurgeons and implants and certain surgical procedures dealing with the head and neck.
Okay, we kind of went way eep into the future of the eighties. But one question I had one When did you leave Gaston, Alabama? And how did you wind up in Houston.
I left Gaston, Alabama in nineteen seventy. I was fortunate to have a number of scholarships and my mother wanted me to stay close to home, so I accepted University of Tennessee. That's where I played basketball for two years and then transferred because I had never been to a black school. And we had scrimmage. You know how major
white school scrimmage a little small black schools. We had scrimmage Fisk University in Nashville, and coach Ronald Lawson, when he was leaving the floor, whispered in my ear knows if you ever want to come to black school, you have a full scholarship, and so I ended up ansferring to Fist University, uh and and graduated there in seventy four. Worked at AT and T for a year and a half, and then me and my frat brothers a Miliga five for Turner.
T blowing up. What was amazing before we go? What was what did you study in this?
I had a degree in economics and one in business okay, got business administration. Uh and we we actually, me and three frat brothers got in my ninety eight ozamobile at the University of Tennessee. Gave me you know, used to get cars and stuff. It was legal work there back back in the seventies. You know, you can do that. Uh. And we Tennessee State played Texas Southern and we got to Houston and we were like, man, wait a minute, something's wrong. These frat brothers got these good jobs, man,
and they weren't even smart as us. So I just got in the car December sixth, nineteen seventy six and made one stop, which was a crazy stop, but got to Houston and had a job. I mean I literally worked at the Near Business Products and Pidney Bowls at the same time for a month for the same at the same time for a month. Because what they used to do was to give you a big book and you would go and study at your apartment and then
they would send you to training. So I wouldn't. I would say, wait a minute, I could do that at my apartment and get paid by both of them. So I got paid by both of them, and then I ended up taking the Pitney bowls job.
They used to be the leader, and you used to have to if you were in a business, you had to machine that did the mailing and postage.
It was still envelopes and stamp stamp envelopes. It was like the number one leader in that area, but it was I was. I was in sales and marketing.
You're telling us you're like the ultimate salesperson, and I think oftentimes people don't realize the talent that it takes to be a sales person like that, like especially on equipment and things of that nature, Like that's a whole nother talent that now I see the transitions well into management.
Now you're selling yourself. You ain't selling the product. You hit it.
You hit it on the head. People by you then your product. And in the music industry always tell my artists you. I call it the three second rule. When you see a new person for the first time, in three seconds, your brain comes up with what you think about them. You say they're attracted, they're not so smart, or whatever. It is your brain in three seconds, and it's hard to change that opinion once someone has opinion of you. Hmm, three seconds.
Okay, So okay, if you apply that, I'm certain that you well, you're at least in a field in which you know you have to make an impression. It's okay now that you say that. Now I really regret a lot of life decisions because in my profession, now, I'll be honest with you. In my profession, I thought our advantage was if you underestimated me. And that's a lesson that Richard taught me. Because here's the thing. My late manager, Richard, who passed away from leukemia. He rich rich was a
guy who's I mean to say mensa. To say mensa level genius would be an understatement when it comes to rich But because of rich also taught me the value of what he would call primitive exotica, which was he knew that there was a sort of curious fetishize factor about him that interest certain prominent white people. Here's a great example, Norman Lear creator.
I mean I met him and yeah.
Yeah, Norman is actually ninety nine now, like he's still alive. We happen to be at an event in la and Rich is the kind of guy that, you know, like when white people discover like that smart black guy that really impresses them, almost like it's like their new toy, that sort of thing, like that's the person that Rich was.
Rich was the guy that read science books and all these things, and so you know, he would sort of just work his stick, knowing that people were underestimating him as he spoke, but realizing like wow, how amazingly smart he is. And next thing, you know, like Norman Lear literally said, can you go on tour with me? And Rich trying to explain like no, I'm actually a manager of like a band and I have a real job, but Norman's like, no, I just I want you to.
And Rich actually spent two weeks with Norman Lear in Beverly Hills and Norman just took him to every all this friends, like look at my new I know this sounds really weird, like it's the update of the toy.
But I know Richard looks like and rich is a nice chocolate brother with locks, and it's very right.
But Rich also knew that the scary factor, like the fact that if you see rich in the first three seconds, you're thinking of the scariest thing, and then you know, he starts with this Harvard you know, intelligency a thing, and that just totally throws you off. And I don't know, like I think in our service, I'm now trying to unlearn everything that rich taught me. And because the way that we entered through the gates was to always be
under estimated. Like people see the roots and like, oh my god, what are you all like arrest development PM doing like yellow whack wearing birkenstocks and all those things. But then we start playing and be like, you know, it's like when when Dame Dash shit on Kanye's Westing, like, oh shit, it's not whack, Like, oh, these guys are good. We I sort of used that factor for the longest. Instead of trying to make a good impression, I would always try.
To go through the door to make lower the expectation.
Yeah, Like I lived life trying to lower expectations and then I'm now noticing now thirty years later that maybe that didn't serve me too well.
Well, you know, we all learned and and I'm sure he was a really really good manager, but we have different perspectives. I think for me, it's the reveal, just similar to when you see an artist for the first time come out on stage. You know, we have use the world we work on that reveal those first three seconds. Think about it for a second when you see Solange and Beyonce, what happens in the first three seconds of their show.
Dude, you don't even have to tell me. Matter of fact, the first time I ever met you, the first time I met you, you know, Beyonce was starting her uh her first solo tour, the one that she did with Missy and Alicia and my first yeah, first tour.
Yeah.
And by that point I had seen maybe three of her shows, in which you know, I always told her like I was, really, I'm really impressed with your interests, like you do these amazing The way that you enter the stage is really, you know, crazy, like I So, so when they came to town to Phi, I'm from Philadelphia, right before she goes on, I was like, Okay, so what's the interest, Like, She's like, you're gonna see run
in the audience, stay stay by the soundboards. I didn't realize. Okay, So she did the thing where she entered from the back of the stadium with the gentleman carrying her on the right. And the thing was is that I came just to see how she was going to enter the stage, because by that point, next to Michael Jackson, I've never met anyone that really really concentrated hard on making a first one, like a good impression on the first minute. And I also I learned another thing that show at
least five minutes later. Okay, So the way that the stage is set up at one point, if you if those who were listening to the podcast, if you remember like those old like sort of like Vegas review shows where the person's name would be spelled out in lights
like a bunch of light bulbs. There was one light bulb out on the letter oh of Beyonce, and I saw you lose your mind in the sound and then suddenly I stopped watching her show for like twenty minutes, and suddenly I'd never seen like this is my Malcolm X moment where the guy goes up to him in the cafeteria.
Talk police like that exactly, like I've.
Never seen one person bark in order and sent twelve people absolutely running to the hills for their lives to fix one light bulb on stage. I've never seen that in my life.
And and you know why, because that light bulb was blinking, which could affected Beyonce's concentration.
Oh yes, hit at the show.
Yeah yeah, I watched you for the next twenty minutes because you know, normally, Matt Setting, I'm on stage, and I'd never get to see, you know, the running by show, because if I'm at a concert, I'm watching the show or I'm on stage. So this is one of the rare moments where I'm watching someone run the show in a way that I never ever.
Ever And most people don't realize Destiny's Child entire performance career Beyonce's first three or four world tours, so lunge first tours, I did the front of the house sound, Oh wow, And I did that because Destiny's Child did if their first tour was with Boys to Men, And when you have four ladies singing and everyone played a role one person in between songs, that's who talk to the audience, and so I would in and out, punch in and out vocals, and we had the back ground
tracks on the tape. And so the engineer back then you paid the junior engineer fifty dollars a show, but he didn't know who was singing and when he didn't know the show, and so it sounded awful. And I said, hey, teach me, teach me. And so from that point when we're doing TV tracks, and then when we got to when Beyonce was doing band, I didn't do the band, but I always did Beyonce's and vocals.
How long did it take for you to master that?
I mastered it quick. I mastered like two or three shows because I just knew when to put the delays, when to punch in, punch out. I mean, these are things people don't know about mequest Love. You know, they don't know this at all.
Okay. So the thing is is that, Okay, so when you when you get to Houston, I don't know the exact year that you moved.
But December sixteen, sixty seventy six, okay, all right, nineteen seventy six.
When you are developing, first of all, how do you know that the talent that your kids have, how do you know that? It's it's beyond just like performing at family functions and Thanksgiving Like I used to be called to the table all the time to do the robot. I mean, do the Michael Jackson real quick. That's where it comes from. Every parent has that story where they you know, they wake up the kid from sleep and you know they're having a party downstairs. All right, A right,
go singing reatha Franklin. Right, Wait what you.
Saying, Teddy? You My parents was good parents.
I know what I'm saying.
What I'm cur I'm just trying what song did you sing? I'm trying to hear what keys like? What he've been singing? Oh you would sing close the door.
I don't know what I'm saying, close the door. You would get that load, you could get that deep. That was I was waiting all day long.
That was your point. You would have to know what Keitt did she say? That is.
What?
Did I knew the words? It's that I knew the words.
I think you just might have won the animated the real like you're seeing closed the door and ship.
That wasn't that was Teddy made pendograss.
You I have jokes.
I'm quick if I jokes man, what's your sign? I'm sorry, I'm just coppricoid.
Indeed, yes, indeed, where's your birthday?
January night?
Okay German, I'm December twenty eighth.
Yeah, Capricorn. Sorry, Steve, we are, yeah, we are. Steven's your birthday soon? Right? Yeah?
September sixth, Virgos, We're amazing people. We just can't figure out what to order in a restaurant. But other than that, it's pretty great.
You are amazing people. Beyonce September fourth.
Damn ye, what's there?
You go? All right? So when how do you know that this is much more than yeah, just you know, good for good for the church choir? How do you know that? Okay, my my daughter might have something.
So parenting, you know, my I think the role of a parent with their kids is to surround them with as much as they can. I would take the girls, and me and my former wife, who would take the girls to, like I said, to the library. We would take them and support their science fairs. We would get them in dance lessons and so that they could figure out and we could see what they gravitated towards and both Solange and Beyonce gravitated towards music, and so then
we surrounded them even more with support. So for Beyonce, she was in the she was eight years old. She was in a talent show against twelve thirteen year old kids and we were sitting there. It was her first time performing, and she said, mom, dad, I'm ready to go, so we can go eat because I need to win one hundred dollars and get my trophy. And we said, well,
how do you know gonna win this talent show? And we weren't paying attention to a practicing or anything, and she said, I just know, I just know, And sure enough she got a stand innovation. Well, after she won thirty one consecutive talent shows, we then start thinking, huh, maybe maybe this is what she really likes and maybe this is what she might be one day entertainer. And the same with Solon's, the same kind of story. I gotta say this, Solon's did something really different. Solons when
she was about nine. One day we came home, she was with the maids. She dismantled about twelve of Beyonce's trophies totally completely dismantled them. I understand it now as a parent, she would say, what about me?
What about me?
What?
Trophies don't mean nothing?
Wow?
Okay, so I know that and and sort of that, uh what's his name? Blink? And the tipping point, Oh, Malcolm Gladwell, Malcolm Gladwell out yeah, and outliers that you know, he says that ten thousand hours of preparation equals genius. I've seen, you know, some clips about you know, camp Knowles or whatever, how you would train them how? Okay? First of all, can you explain about the decision to leave your cushy comfort job as as a salesman.
How your wife worked that out? Yeah?
Yeah, and yeah, what's the what was the decision to really make the leap into Okay, I'm going to now steer this, steer this empire to where it should go so that we can have a legacy.
So you know, when I was at Xerox Medical Systems, I told you I was highly successful there, highly successful at Phillips, not so much successful at Johnson and Johnson and that neurosurgic position. I didn't like it because you know, I came from selling a five million dollar piece of equipment to selling a whole bunch of thousand dollars instruments. And I didn't like that. I didn't like on the weekends going to the operating room and having a pager
every other weekend. I just didn't like getting up at four in the morning going to surgery.
And so.
One of the hospitals in the medical system center after a procedure, I got paid. So I thought, did the patient die? Did I say something wrong? Did I do something wrong? So I run up to the neurosurgeon's office and he tells me, miss knows, I can't use your instruments anymore. And I asked him why. He said, showed me the letter that if he didn't reduce his cost per procedure. If he didn't reduce that he was not he was going to lose his privileges at that hospital. Wow,
And no surgeon wants that because that's their livelihood. At that point, I call Tina, my former wife, and said, I can't do this shit anymore. Quote That's exactly what I said, because I was like, I'm not selling quality, I'm selling costs, and I just can't do that. I'm not really ready selling a whole bunch of little stuff, and I just didn't like what I was doing. So I realized at that moment that was a defining moment, and we all have the any moments in our lives
that I had to do something else. I was gonna get fired anyway. So I knew I had to do something else, and I decided I wanted to change my career. What people don't know is when I was a kid, my dad had four hundred pounds, could dance his butt off. And they would go, my mom and dad on Sundays into the living room that had that plastic on it. Y'all too young to understand.
Oh no, we're talking about my grandma still got plastic on the couch now.
So they would go in there. Man, they started dancing, and my job was to put. I had a nickel of diamond a quarter, and we had vinyl, and my job was to put and look at that vinyl and finally, you know more, I heard it. I knew so it went scratched because my dad would get really mad when he was dancing if the record scratched. And so I then start reading the line of notes and I didn't realize,
but I became a DJ every Sunday. They did this every Sunday, you know they I knew I could tell by my dad's emotions what songs to play, and that's really what the DJ does. Anyway. I knew peaches and earths, closed my you know I do. I better put close my eyes on right now. Fast, fast dumbino. You know that was one of his jams. I knew if he wanted to do some tempo, I better do fast dumbino. But and most people not mostly hardly anybody knows that. In high school, I was actually we had a boy group.
You know, back in the day, talent shows was a big thing in the black community. Uh but at our high school, we had a talent you know. We we won. Actually we did Psychedelic Shock by the tim Taste Temptations.
That's where it's at.
Yeah. And I just love music. I always love love the music. And so I decided. And at the same time, Beyonce was in this girl group called Girls Time. All I did because my former wife was we owned a hair salon and so on the weekends was her big days, and that's when the girls would practice Fridays and Saturdays. Uh, So I would drop her off at practice, go play basketball, come back and pick her up. Uh. And then they got to Star Search, which is like American Idol, and
they lost, and I'm there. They asked me to come to bring all the wardrobe because the then managers thought they were gonna win for a month and had a whole room just for the wardrobe. And then when they lost, I came up. I went up to air McMahon. I said, well, these kids are crying their hearts out. What what do I do? And he said, I don't know why, mister know, Actually I don't know why. He had a Don Conelia's voice. He said, but everyone that consistently win on the show
professionally go on to do nothing. It's the people that lose Aliyah justin timberlay Usser Alanas Marce said, I can go on and on that lost, they went on to be successful because they recommitted, rededicated, changed their organization. And I never forgot those words, and that.
That makes sense because people that win think they want they think, oh I made it, and right, you didn't.
Ray and so it's so it's interesting. It's like eighteen A list artists google it. Sometimes you'd be surprised all the people. But but, but I actually ended up because
I have always believe in knowledge is power. So I went back to junior college, Houston Community College here in Houston, and on the weekends I took artist management, music production, and I took publishing on the weekends on Saturdays, and over a year period and went to every seminar I could, and I would be the guy you want to shut up because I keep asking every question. Everybody's shy and quiet. I'd be like, oh well how about this? And why
do you do this? And and I understood relationships. Now this is what's going to surprise you. The first artists and Google is the first artist that I ever signed to a major record deal. And the first artist that I signed as a manager was not Destiny's Child who was it Little Old? His single is Can't Stop. He was signed to m c A Records in the peak
when they had Mary J. Blige, Joessy P. Diddy. I can go on and on, little, oh, little Little, and the single is called can't Stop and it features Destiny. How the hell did I convince m c A Records to put a Columbia Records artist that didn't even have a record on his first single, but I did, but Little Oh was my first artist, a rap artist. The sample is loose ends.
Wow, yeah, you can't stop the rain.
Wait question, okay, because I didn't ask this about your Xerox thing, But who is is your communications expertise? Is that self taught or is this something you learned in college? Because yes, I do know that the key to a successful business person is one that remembers names and you know, it's personable as a people person, all things I kind of don't like about this industry. But I realized that I have to jump in the pool someone begrudgingly, but like,
who taught you the art of communication? You know?
My foundation is and was from Xerox Corporation. And if you reach the search, there's been so many presidents of corporations, black men and women that in the eighties talking back in the day seventies and eighties that worked at Xerox in Leedsburg, Virginia. There was actually a college that we would go to. I credit Xerox Corporation or all of my success and communications and understanding people and understanding how
to sell myself build relationships. I always will credit them because they taught me and many others foundation that is unparallel.
But it doesn't get exhausting like remembering names and terrible with that have have to.
I remember faces faces I would never face.
I remember sales calls, and I would have everybody come into the to the to the meeting in a comforence room and I have on a piece of paper a chart. Well I had everybody's names. I can remember their name. See thea art. I'm terrible with names. I'm still bad at names. That's what it is.
Some people get the joy out of you don't remember me, do you? And I just now I'm just blatant, like absolutely not.
I don't remember.
Yeah, absolutely terrible with names. But you know that's where I learned it. I learned from Zeros Corporation.
Can you talk about pounding the pavement actually landing a record deal?
Yeah, I can, because uh were I got a number of letters that said we formerly passed on your group called Destiny Stahl. Uh. Then you know the group went from Girls Time, then they signed with Darryl Simmons l A and Baby Face Partner still to the day in writing UH and Solid Partner production. They got dropped by Electra Records. Sylvia was the president. Then she hates when I say that. He hates when I say that. But but it was she she literally Daryl had a new
production deal and he had three artists. H the girls were called the Dolls, a name I really dislike then, and she ended up ending the production deal. But she had the right to continue with the girls. But I understood that she had this girl group called InVogue, and so why the hell would you want another girls group and a bunch of parents. I get it, So I understand that now. But yes, the girls, you know, I came up with this idea when they came back from Atlanta.
I changed the name to something fresh, and then we did a photo shoot and I sent out packages. I used to spend a lot of time way I didn't have a clue. Then I would have a package with maybe twenty pages, photos and all kind of stuff, not understanding less was more, uh, And then I would get these past letters. And then I came up with another name of the girls. And then we came up with
the name Destiny, and then Destiny came Destiny's child. So this this started, this journey started when Beyonce was eight years old and she got signed. When she was fifteen also.
So you're telling me that you would get a round of news and then your idea was, Okay, we're going to come back as another name, Like how do you convince them? Like, okay, let's let's regroup and this time we're going to call ourselves this and do it all over again.
Yeah, it was a bad idea.
And I would assume that you would also try to do the usual pavement pounding at the jack the Rappers of the world and all those commissions.
All of those, all of them. I was there. I was there with a whole stack of business cards, you know, but a whole stack of CDs. So who actually had then?
I'm amazed that you never gave up, because from the story that I'm hearing is that you have to make a few rounds to the same labels over and over again with new names or you know, like a new an R that fits. And I mean you never once worried about like the proverbial eye roll of whoever is at you know this particular Oh god, Matthew, no matt Noles again. Okay, I'll take the car.
Y, But you gotta remember about my background. I was the number one sales up in the world. It sells you're gonna hear No, No, it's just I didn't present it correctly. That's when I get to know. It's like, Okay, I didn't present that right.
And there was and the girls weren't taking this person or any of those things like you just like, how do you break it to them that it didn't work out or it's not our time that like, how how do you break bad news to them that doesn't break their spirit?
Well, it was being honest, first of all, and they weren't I mean, in reality, they weren't ready. They really weren't ready. And they accepted the fact that they weren't ready, that they had to improve, they had to grow, they had to practice, they had to get more focals. This was their passion and they accepted that and they did the things because they also were best friends and they got to spend time and had a lot of fun as little girls do together.
Can I ask, because I'm now realizing I have a rare chance to ask a question of this manner that I probably wouldn't have. You know, it comes into twenty years ago to ask you, and I'm kind of jumping ahead a little bit, but that that period between like nineteen ninety nine in two thousand and one where you're making personnel changes and whatnot. And I know, you know, just from the line of work that I come in, how discipline, rigorous discipline.
And.
You know, you kind of have to be on your p's and q's in this business and oftentimes you might have weak links. I mean not to just dismiss people as weak links or whatnot, but you know, I know that especially pre or the beginning stages of the Internet, a lot has been said of your sort of backstage
dad control of the group. But what is the biggest miss perception of your role during that period in which you're changing personnel, like right before Michelle Williams came into the group, what do you feel the of course, now you know post two thousand and one and two thousand and two, two thousand and three, like post Survivor then you know, now it's like, you know, your dad of
the century. But there was that period where we didn't know what was happening, like was was this going to be a dream girl's supreme situation or was it going to be a destiny fulfilled situation? But what did you feel during that period was a major sort of misconception of just like how that situation went down.
Yeah, I just never I just never really cared what people said about me. I understood again from Xerox's leadership and what true leadership really means. People aren't gonna and when you're a visionary, people aren't gonna get that most people. Matter of fact, I'm glad most people don't get it, because for those of us that are visionaries, if everybody got it, to make it really tough to be successful.
So I had a vision, I had leadership, I had amazing team, and I just said earlier, the team has been together for a long time, from road manager to accountants to you know, music directly publicist Yvette Noel Shore twenty plus years. These guys have been together, and so I built a really good team. It wasn't just me, but we had our own vision. You know, Tina, my
former wife, did an exceptional job on the imaging. You know, back then those girl groups were in boots and baggy jeans, and we wanted to do glamour and bring back the Supremes. We always had a vision that we had and we didn't stray from that. And if you know, anyone quest Love that actually really worked in the record label and really was there, I think you would get a totally different perspective of the role I played and what really happened.
I mean, fans, you know, we are in the industry, fans are you know, fans are gonna have their perspective, but they don't really know. Fans don't really know what's happening.
Yeah.
From an outsider's perspective, I my I think my kind of Matthew knows moment. I had heard like all the Desert Child stuff and you know, I were going through the group change and everything. For me, I understood the type of businessman you were when I saw you signed Daylight Soul. When when you signed them, I was like, word the fuck up?
Yes, like you get it, you know what I'm saying. I was so happy to see.
You like that first single shopping Bags. Yeah, people don't know this about me. You know that, we mean.
Me, We don't know, we know, we know everybody else about to know, we don't know.
In two thousand and two, I sold music well it's you can google it for ten million dollars and thirty million in stock and we Sanctuary was at that time, in two thousand and two, the largest independent record label. Rock was their thing. They had all the major Rocks. And we formed the Urban Division and I was the president of it, and we had the Urban Record Label, the largest urban management company in the world. You know, we had Nelly young men. I made all these these
kids were all in their twenties. The men, I shouldn't say kids. These young men were all in their twenties and became millionaires. And when I look back and I see at you know, can do Isaac's you know, we brought him on board. He was at that time producing for Mary j Uh. We brought in from Philadelphia. Uh, doctor doctor, God's basketball player. I just had a mental. Julius Irving the third Yeah, they had Floor Tree and they had Eve. I brought those guys only Carter and
Troy Carter, who was my number one draft pick. When I tell you this young man, absolutely And just the other day I heard on one of the social media platforms he talked about it. Uh, where Troy was my number one The first person I brought on board. I didn't know Jay Irving at that time, but I had really followed this kid with Eve and he had a rapper. They had a rapper also, I can't.
Remember his name, but journalists, Yes, that's a journalist when he was journalist.
And then I brought in the management for D twelve and so this is who what I management roster was. Now you'll understand when they had the MTV tour and Destiny's Child Nelly and Eve was only now you understand why now you understand Kelly and Kelly, Well I was. I was just about to say, now you understand that just wasn't happenstance. That was because they were part of
music World, I mean Sanctuary Music World, Sanctuary Urban Management. Uh. And then on the record labels side, we I signed earth Winner Fire.
I say, you did the Illumination record.
Right, Illumination ray J's biggest hit one wish you know. I did a deal with ray J and his mother. We did the Ojays cooling the game. I convinced Shaka Khan to go to London and do a standards records with the London Symphony. You know, we did a whole lot there. Now, as the media on the record label side, they gave me the black eye because Sanctuary ended up going downhill. Obviously they always looked for Who's going to be Escapegoat? But on the record label, on the management side,
we made plenty of money. On the record label side. You know, it takes time to recoup those you know, I spent money with these artists. I believe in spending money with my artists, and it takes a minute to recoup those investments. But it was a great, great time, wonderful time that I had got a little too a little too, like we talked earlier, questlove had too much going on uh at the time. UH. And during this period is where I began to unravel, when the stress
came with all the travel. Because I had an office on Sunset Boulevard, I had an office in New York. I had two offices in New York. I had an office of Sony at five fifty Medisine. I had an office downtown in New York. My corporate office was in London. I was in London then near every other week. We had an office my fifteen oh five Hatley, which is where Hatley Street dreams, because that's where we own the
whole block with records, labels, studios, rehearsal. You were there, you been there, You've been there.
How did you know I was there. I was about to say compound. I went there for some reason. I forget why I went down there, And it wasn't even to work with your daughters.
But yeah, it was something we did with one of you know, we used to rent it out to different good.
That's right, because when you were saying that, I was like, wait a minute, did not visit music worlds.
It was one of those power drinks.
Yes, yeah, right now, that was like to see that was that was important for me to also see the development. Like when I went inside Music world I was really impressed because the only other oh god, okay, I'm gonna I'm a prince basis about to come down on me for this statement. I mean, the last time I went to something as close to that was Paisley Park, and during that time period, you know, it wasn't that well kept, and you know, it was basically just by that point
just his vanity studio, Like it was far from the utopia. Yeah, it as far from the utopian vision that I think that he envisioned where it was like a full scale video in a Latinot video like a arsal spot and a club and all those things. But like to see it in real time, like in full operation. I was very I was really impressed with how that that operation was, what was running down there.
Yeah, and then we had you know, we had not only we had the we built the largest gospel label only Sony. Sony beat us out one year by like ten and market share. You know. We did a partnership with B. E. T. Sunday best Leandrea Johnson, Grammy Award winner number one Female Gospel Trinity five seven, six six records on them. That's I'm soft, I'm strong. I can go on and on. We had a real burgering gospel label. Most people don't know this stuff, you know, they just trophy.
They just know I'm Beyonce. That's not a bad thing. Yeah, that's not a bad thing at all. But but I you know, at one point we had one hundred and forty employees. At one point, my overhead was three hundred thousand dollars a month's business a month. And as you know, Ques Love, Uh, you know, I'm very proud as a black man we own the city block. Let me change that when I say when I say we, people think Beyonce and sluntch I fucking own a city block. In downtown Houston.
Yes, look and the land that it says on too grow right. People don't understand about that lane heavy land from Alabama owning his land in the corner.
I'll ask how hard or how easy was it for you to let Beyonce, in the last stages of her caterpillar period, blossom into a butterfly and basically go handle her business on her own, which, well, I.
Think it was the same for Beyoncelunge and even some other artists.
Well, I'll ask how hard was it to not walk away but to let your artists fly?
Yeah, I always say we forget that most artists I worked with, not most, I would say half of them were teenagers. You know, how you manage a fifteen year old in the business is different than how you manage her thirty five year old or a thirty year old in the business. As you know, I always say this, We don't in the industry let fourteen fifteen year olds make million dollar decisions at all on the business side.
So I managed them differently. But my kids got to see their mother on the business, their dad own the business be in corporate America. They got to grow as they got older, and I hope, and I've seen them say it now and I'm very proud of even Beyonce's on the cover of magazine. She just just recently said that it was me that instilled in her to be a writer, to be a producer, not just to be a singer artist, but to be an entertainer. But to watch them grow and as they got older they got
more information. When they were younger, wanted them to focus on their artistry, not on the music business, because the music business is most of this stuff, and if you're trying to do both at eighteen nineteen twenty two, it's gonna fail. It's just too much. At the level of success that they had. That's why we had one hundred and fifty employees. How does one person who understand marketing, understand the international marketplace, understand all the financial nook One
artist at seventeen, eighteen years old can do that. So it's ludicrous when people say that, well, he was controlling. That's what you do when you manage teenagers. You control their business, and as they get older, they get involved as they understand it. That's why I teach this in class. I have a in my classes. I've been doing this in a classroom for fifteen years. There's one hundred and ninety three definitions starting with A and R going all
the way through. Like a lot of people, ninety percent of all the people in the industry don't know it. It's a lot to know on the business side.
So they so when they kind of went and when beyond sat Silan's gotten to that point where they wanted to control their careers or have more of a say, or however you look at it.
You just saw that.
As like a natural progression, like you kind of anticipated that coming.
To It was a combination. It was a combination of that. And it also, as I spoke candidly earlier, there was a period in those mid two thousand that I unraveled as a father, as a husband, and that impacted it. You know, when you when you're a father and you have daughters, they look at you way more than just as their manager.
That's why I felt so full circle. I feel like at a certain part of their careers Beyonce with Lemonade and the songs and Solange with Cranes, it felt like such a full circle moment for y'all family. Just as a person who don't know y'all, but just kind of been watching for a long way, but it just felt like a like you said, that moment of you being in the studio with Miss Tina and just hearing your words and hearing your story and them now embracing those
stories as a part of their art form. It just felt like such a full circle like moment, right.
And you know, I always say that when we make mistakes, we have failures, it's an opportunity to grow, not a reason to quit. And most of us we first don't face up in the knowledge that we made a mistake. That's the only way we grow is first of all saying hey, I fucked up, and then go get help and grow from it. And I'm fortunate that I'm, you know, my eighth year married to an amazing woman that has impacted my life, Gina. I would marry Tina and a Gina. Sometimes I sometimes get confused.
Man, you knows me like my former wife, so I don't have to even say the names, right.
But you know, Tenda and I are really friends. She's an amazing woman and I will always honor her. I never use that word X because I think that diminishes and it's a negative uh, and out of respect, I don't use that word. Just say my former wife and Gina Jena was Vanessa Williams assistant and international road manager for ten years. Uh, my former real model, So she has experience in entertainment. And our co key is we don't talk business unless unless I need a sounding board.
But we don't talk business. And that can really devastate a family when you you can be talking about dinner and that becomes yeah, but what about this song? What if we did this? Yeah?
And that's what I was asking earlier. I'm like, Yo, how do you draw that line?
Because it's so work with business? Yo, I just working with family, Like Yo, that is so oh my god, that's such a.
And that that became a real challenging and our family dynamics is separating the two. When are you a dad and when are you a manager? And especially it's easy with all my other artists because I was their manager, or actually I was, most people think I was the manager. I did more record label stuff than the management. But
which you're with Destiny's Child. It was difficult because I have a fiduciatory duty to all four of the ladies or three of the ladies and actually Beyonce actually probably got hurt more than anybody because I was tougher on her than the others.
I appreciate you all this evolution.
You can tell when somebody's lying. Man, I'm just giving you truth.
Yeah.
It sounds so easy, but it's not easy for everybody.
Yeah, hey, doctor knows. Can you talk about your your battle with cancer and how you've handled it and you know, to be honest with you, it's it's very rare that I hear men speak of breast cancer. I didn't even kind. I didn't know that was a thing. Mm hm, Can you and I most of us didn't even know that you were going through this. Can you walk us through the process of your discovery of it? And how? Yeah?
I love to I love to you know. Oddly enough, when I was the number one sales rep at Xerox Medical System, oddly enough, what I sold was zero radiography, which in the eighties was the leading modality for breast cancer detection. Go figure, wow wow, Okay, And even back in the eighties we realized and talked about men and breast cancer. I'm really about messaging, so I chose not to message as male breast cancer but mail chest cancer.
And I've gotten support but from the medical communities and every man that I've talked to, because a lot of the stigma and it brings the embarrassment for men to use that word breast and also in respect to women, because it's three four guys now and one woman. None of us would be other guys would think hardly twice to take our shirt off. A woman's not gonna do that.
That's a special sanctuary place for a woman. So I choose to say male chest cancer and a lot of that stigma, And the way I make it really come home is for women, if you are going to have to open a door that said male prostate exam, I think you'll be quite embarrassed. And for men, when we have to open a door that says female breast center, a women's breast center, that's quite embarrassing. That's not something
you feel good about. So first of all, I like to just really on the messaging of how we say it. The second thing for me, I knew because I sold the equipment and I had I used to wear I still do white T shirts a lot under my shirts, and I noticed one day a dot. So imagine you had a white sheet of paper and you had a dot. I didn't think anything. I actually thought my wife had bought some new T shirts and maybe it was just a little manufacturing malfunction. The next day I noticed five
or six dots. Then I the next day I said to my wife. I was like, Hugh, did you buy some new T shirts? I see these little red dots. And she was like, that's interesting because when I cleaned your sheets today there was a bunch of red dots of blood on your side of the bed. Again, just imagine several dots, like on a white sheet of paper. Well, through my training of selling zero radiography, that is a very common sign for men, and so I knew that.
And when immediately got a mammogram, then got a biopsy, and then literally a week later, had surgery. That's not the end of the story, that's just the beginning doing surgery. And there was a delay. We should have done this before,
but we didn't. I won't get into that. But when we did the pathology, it turned out that genetically, which is where medicine is going, that I had a genetic malfunction and because of that genetic malfunction, called BRAKA two mutation means that for men that we have a higher risk of prostate cancer, mal chest cancer, cancer, pancreatic cancer,
and melanoma from a genetic standpoint. And so a lot of men are walking around thinking prostate when the real cost of it, real cause of it rather is because they have mal chest cancer. And we're finding this out. And I'm part of research at the University of Pennsylvania. Actually I've come been there. That's where I'm part of the research there. This is my second year of recovery. I always say today I'm cancer free, but it also meant a lifestyle change, and I get really excited quest
love when I hear you talk about weight loss. It's a sensitive subject in a Black cammunity. My dad was obese. I've been obese myself. I was up to to sixty eight. I'm now at two thirty five. My goal is to get to to thirty, which is easy, you know, should be something that I can obtain. It meant also in that lifestyle change stopping drinking alcohol. It also meant in that life because of the sugar and because also just the effect of being crazy on alcohol.
So you're a big drinker. Was that was that a thing for you, A big drink.
I wouldn't say a big but celebratory drinker. But when I did drink, I drank. You know it meant it meant changing my diet. I don't sell them. I eat meat, and what I do is only chicken, a fish this week, most weeks is many vegetables. So I changed my eating habits. I exercised. I just got a knee replacement four and a half months ago, which is doing really good. Just my basketball days. But I was up to jogging two miles a day and I'm getting there. I'm on the bike five miles on the bike.
Back peloton, a peloton only.
If it's the Beyonce version. You know, you know.
The one thing I'm selling, the one.
Thing I brought to the music industry was branding an endorsement which the industry was selling records. I was selling a brand which is totally different. But to get back, so admit the lifestyle change for me, and I've accepted that. I've seen the results. Every six months I've been getting a mammogram MRI. I sold MRI.
So is it more painful for you? Doctor knows? Because I was wondering for men and a mammogram. I'm gonna just have a truthful moment. I'm having my first one. I'm having my first one this year, and my biggest fear is just how painful I've heard that it is, but especially maybe if you don't have a lot of tissue up there. So I imagine that.
Well, I put things in perspective. If I can save my life because of two minutes of fucking pain.
Okay, you and get tested.
I don't want it.
I just don't want it.
Bus it ain't gonna it's not gonna bunutes.
Two minutes, two minutes each one, I mean at most, but it's based on the different angles. Well overall it'll be about twenty minutes. But that's about it. But we put it in perspective, just the rewards and early detection and and this is for men and women. As medicine is changing, we'll understand I say we. I'm not a medical doctor. I just say we, as I'm a cancer survivor. Are understanding family history? We know black people. We don't pay attention to our family history. It's right there in
front of you. If you just take a moment to ask what the mom and them and uncle nem and Grandma and them died of You might see you might see a common thread.
Sugar Steve, how you doing in your uh your journey. There's a reason we call him sugar Steve.
Oh yeah, yeah, everything as long as you manage stuff, you know you can. It's something you can live with.
I got the diabetes doctor.
Well, well you understand weight loss and diet and you under standing the exercise.
Yeah, try and trying to be good.
No, we don't try, ship Sugar Street.
We don't talk.
We don't use trying our vocabulary. We fucking do.
Do or do not? There is no trying.
Yes, you don't try.
Your daughters? Can Can I get adopted in this family?
Like?
Don't? There is no.
I always thank you. I I can't begin to tell you how grateful I was to see that time when you, out of all the people in the world, you say the ten people you like to have dinner with, and you said me, I was like, what why you.
Just the backstories? Basically I did this thing, and oh when I did, uh when I when I did my my my food book, uh up mixtape and New York Times asked me to name. I'm known up here for my dinner parties, and uh so they asked me, you know who who that I think would make an interesting, uh dinner guest. And you know, at the time when Solons really really sold us on you, it was doing
that period. And then I just really went down a rabbit hole of like all of your interviews and I was just like, yo, like he really he has a story to tell that I really wasn't expecting because I think men in your position, like we we've been sold all of our lives. We've been sold the hustler, you know what I mean, the hustler that you know, even even the hustler like wins the game and that sort of thing. But we we haven't been sold like the strategist,
visionary or yeah, that sort of thing. And and that's why.
Because black people can't vision, they can't do that, right.
That's the media, you know, that's the Jedi man trick. That's you know, behind the decision and making a TV and you know it's typically a white person. Uh you know, I just uh, this summer, this is my second summer going to Harvard and taking professional development, and so I took this summer cultural Intelligence, which really increased my awareness of how culturally different that we are.
And these are classes that you're taking that you're.
That I took ethical leadership last summer. You know, you get to know me. I'm not the guy that they picture at all. We know I I see I played the media like they play us.
Okay, okay, talk about it.
I won't get into that one. But you know, they want to always paint a picture of who we are and success that it can't be because as you said, that we're strategists or that we're smart. It has to be or we had a vision. It has to be with swing. Golly, you know, We've got to always be that, you know, and that was always Black radio. My challenge, the Black radio and when they used to have like an entertainers segment and and it would always be negativity
on black artists. That look, guys, we need you to do the reverse. But unfortunately, how social media has impacted our young people negativity and the Jedi mind trick is how they're played every day. You know, I've sat in meetings our young people have no idea how and when we learned through the last election Russia, we found who did they go to Black people on social media?
Right?
You know, we get played on this social media stuff. It's not news anymore, It's it's social conversation.
I gotta know, I mean really like, you know, I haven't I haven't had goosebunk moments like this from someone talking since like my mom used to religiously like watch less brown talk less brown boy, and that's brown. Yeah. I like less.
I like less a lot.
Yeah, and I know my well, yeah, I do know that you've done TED talks and you're teaching universities and whatnot. But I mean, have you really considered like motivational speaking.
I do a lot of that.
I'm about to say, where can we see you? Because yeah, even.
Talk my TED talk is a motivational is on the DNA of achievers and what is that? I mean I talked. I do a lot of motivational stuff on even in entrepreneurship, you know, and motivating our people and understanding the who, the what, the why, who is the customer, what is the product and why does somebody should buy it? And motivating them to understanding that process. You know, we've been gosh, we go back to the culture of black people and slavery and how it still impacts us in a negative way.
You know, policing came about through slavery. If you go back, you see in eighteen hundreds, just post slavery, BAM policing started. You know, this whole thing of colorism started in slavery. When it got off the ship. There was babies that came out looking white. It's just such a cultural conditioning that we have to overcome as black people, cultural conditioning.
You we're speaking on that colorism too, because I know that you in the media even try to speak on that. But it's things that we need to talk about and don't.
We don't grow without being uncomfortable. My job in life is to make people uncomfortable. And I had fun with Charlemagne. I kicked his ass. You did, you spanked his ass, actually just spanked his ass all over the room.
That Charlamaine episode was because it was the moment, the moment where it went left, like the moment I saw. Listen, I'm telling you the moment.
You know the recap so like Charlamagne is doing and it's a piece of Charlemagne. He in Carolina, He's South Carolina. But you know all of that, you know what I'm saying. So it's all whatever but listen though, now. So they're going for whatever, and Charlemagne is kind of trying to get at him. So mister Knowles just stops and he's like, you really sad? Why are you so sad?
And Yo, the look on Charlomagne, she was like, oh ship, I wouldn't expected like it was so it was. It was, Oh god, it was so brilliant.
I was like, yeah, Jabs and yeah he was.
He was left and left and left and yeah. And I asked him, I said, you know, Charlemagne, this mama, what feelings are coming up for you?
That's a black man in therapy.
So he already know and that's a black man at therapy. And we continue to talk and I said, Charlemagne, you're on that short bus, brother. And by the way, you got too much fucking makeup on.
Lazy Get your dad.
Come here, come here, come get your daddy out of the paint. Huh No, okay, So why are we talking about it? So being that you, you know, you manage your daughters.
You were over their careers.
You know you're going they're gonna write songs that are personal and you know, may talk about family stuff and all that. How what was your response to Eliminade and hearing that record, what was your thought on it?
Well, I think everybody should occasionally have a glass of lemonade and have a seat and have a seat at the table.
Always marketing. It's about the brand.
It's about the brand.
Okay, Well, I ain't got to eliminade. I got me some ging a.
You should have a seat at the table there.
I want you, thank you, thank you.
This has been fun. You just got me unapologetically.
You know, I knew what it was gonna be.
Take all this appreciation, and it represents at least a million black folks that have been appreciating you, like for real.
Like I know, and I thank you for acknowledging.
That the work, your rigorous, honesty, your your your messaging. You know we should, we should, you know, happiness and and enjoy.
Just the work you've done on yourself. Man, the work. Yes, it's very common.
I'm really this was not the phone call the conversation that I did.
Right here.
I'm just you know, thank you. This was me watching this episode. I don't even feel like I participated.
Happened when you know, when you interviewed with me. I got to listen to your journey, and it was similar because you shared your journey well. And I think the more we share our journeys with people and let them know the challenges that we have to overcome, that we're no different than anybody else, no better, none of that. We wake up in the morning and we go to bed at night hoping for another day. And the beauty about that is I like to always leave you know.
I travel, as you know, a lot. And I was in La back in the two thousands and I was going down an escalator at lax and there was a non for Mexico who gave had a jar that said please give to the missionary. And I learned not to be judgmental. I give when people ask. And she gave me a card and literally because I used to have. You know, you can imagine in the heyday how many business cards and CDs people were giving me. And I finally looked at that card. It might have been a
month later. And that's what I like to leave you with. It said, pray not for a life free from trouble, Pray for triumph over trouble. For what you and I call adversity, the universe, God, whatever name calls opportunity for what you and I call adversity the universe God Allah calls opportunity. We pray too much that bad shit ain't gonna happen. It is. Look when it happened, what is
the opportunity. When I came with mel chest cancer, it gave me the opportunity to share that with other people, hopefully save some lives just by being honest about it and open and for everybody. When bad stuff happened, look at it as an opportunity rather than oh, I man, and bad shit happened.
Listen those how do you in the artists that you work with when you're working with younger guys. Because I'm just sitting there listening to this conversation now, and I mean I'm forty two now, so now a lot of this shit is resonating with me. But had I heard it at twenty two, you know, maybe not so much. So with all just the experience and knowledge and game that you have, when you're working with younger artists, how do you make that knowledge palatable to them?
Well, you know, I don't know. I'm done with that side with that. I'm quickly eager excited to say I'm done on the music site. I do have three or four film and TV projects that we're working on. You know, when I was in the business, it used to really surprise the artists. They come to music World and ready to sing rap, have their band, and I wouldn't do that. I would want them to sit down on the sofa in my office and I wanted to talk to them. I wanted to get to know and understand is this
really truly your passion or a hobby? And for most people, poor boy, it's hobbies. And that's what I always look for if they were passionate. If they were passionate, then I could work with that. But most people really aren't passionate because they don't know what their passion. They don't understand when you live this thing called passion that you never work a day in your life. They don't know
what coexists with passion. It's work ethics. You find somebody that passionate, they work their butts are because they love it. And when even quest love when you said it earlier about all the things you were doing, I was asking, but was he passionate about that? Because if you were, it wouldn't work. To you it was fun and I see my girls and Beyonce and Salons, and they work hard, but they actually love to the core. What they do to the core.
What a blessing through your journey. That's what your babies can do. That's what a blessing.
Yeoh, just thank you, Doctor knows that appreciate it. I gotta wreck this episode up, man.
Now, this is this is service. This, this is this is sermon right here.
I say this a lot. I'm definitely sticking to it. This is in my top five episodes of this five year. I don't know, maybe since today I don't know the moon whatever I needed.
Thank you.
I needed to hear this today for real.
This is necessary.
I'm gonna call my mom and my girlfriend right now.
So he's not gonna cry old Air.
He's gonna cry in the car he was. He's gonna try the car.
Won't sugar Steven Finiclo.
And when you come this way, we gotta get together. And if I come your way, let's promise we go. Let's promise we're gonna have a mill.
Yes, I will contact you through like I promised. I really needed this conversation. Thank you very much, Doctor Knowles. This is quest Low. We will see I don't even think we need to do no more episodes.
Like this might be.
Right, No, no no.
On the series finale, West Love Supreme starting about to know.
Yes exactly all right, Thank you guys. We'll see you on the next go around.
Thank you, yo. What's up? This is Fonte.
Make sure you keep up with us on Instagram at QLs and let us know what you think and.
Who should be next to sit down with us. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast, all right peace.
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